Book recommendation: Sounds from Heaven

As I am returning to this blog I must admit that I have nothing new to add from my personal experience. Still praying, still waiting, still hungering and thirsting for God to pour out his Spirit. I have come across a very good book about the Revival on the Isle of Lewis, written by Colin and Mary Peckham. The title of the book is "Sounds from Heaven". Great reading, very challenging, though. The amount of prayer that went up to God prior to the revival seems to have been colossal. Those Scottish Presbyterians knew how to persist in prayer. I don't see this intensity yet anywhere around me here in Ireland. Another fact that I learned the past week about the revival here in Dublin in 1967: There was a blind man who was the leader of the Nazarene Church at that time. He and another guy in the congregation fasted and prayed for 40 days prior to the outbreak of the revival. There seems to be a very high price attached to this special blessing of revival - a price of persistent and sacrificial intercessory prayer. And who is able for that? How do you "go through with  God?" How do you persist in God's presence without being legalistic? Without trying to twist his arm? Without trying to impress him with your good works, with your good prayers? How do you learn to be a true intercessor? - You can only learn it by doing it. By entering into this dangerous, lonely and demanding place before the face of our holy God. Only he can teach you how to pray while you are praying. To bear the burden of unsaved souls, to feel some of the pain HE is feeling in view of so many people perishing in their sins. In Ezekiel 22 God laments the fact that he sought one person to stand in the gap between him and the people so that he would have a reason to stop his judgment - and he found none. Intercession is a lonely and very demanding calling. Who will heed the call? - My prayer is: Here am I, Lord, take me. But can I really do it? With God's help I will try - that's all I can say. Anybody want to join in?

Revival starts with Us

It's been a while since my last blog entry. A few days after I wrote it my father passed away - unexpectedly and suddenly. Life has been challenging and intense since then. But in the midst of it all I sense God working mightily in me.

A few weeks ago God started to move on my heart in an unprecedented and unusual way. The hunger for revival, the hunger for his manifest presence in my life and in our church grew so strong that I couldn't shake it off anymore. In addition to that God sent confirmation through different sources and different people all across the spectrum of the Christian Church. One weekend I wasn't able to prepare my sermon that I had intended to preach. Hunger for God and conviction of my own sin gripped me so hard, I had to spend hours in prayer before God, seeking his face in tears and repenting of all known sin and my idols. Instead of preaching on the intended text of Acts 1, 1-8 I just gave a testimony of what God is doing in my life. Those of you who would like to hear about it can log on to www.nazarene.ie and listen to the sermons of the last couple of weeks. The importance of and the urgent need for repentance gripped my consciousness and penetrated my thinking. God is on the move. And he starts with us. After the service where I couldn't preach my intended sermon one of the members of my congregation forwarded to me the following email that she had received from Simon Guillebaud (A Christian Author whom God had used to speak to me):

I'm feeling very challenged of late, and the below hit me hard:

This man was born in a gypsy tent, of humble origins, and yet ended up being invited to the White House by two presidents. Rodney ‘Gypsy’ Smith came into the world in 1860 in Epping Forest, just outside London. Forty five times he crossed the Atlantic to preach the gospel to millions of people on both sides. His passion was almost unparalleled, and there was great fruit in what he did. What was his secret? Private prayer. His praying was even more powerful than his preaching.

A delegation once came to him to enquire how they might experience personal and mass revival as he had. They wanted to be used the way Gypsy was. Without hesitating, he said:

“Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle round yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.”

How badly do we want it?

SG

It is good to pray for revival in Ireland, or Germany, or Russia or the world. But the start of it is very personal: revival starts with us. I don't have a piece of chalk to draw a circle around myself, but there is a rug in my study that I often kneel on to pray. My intense prayer now, as I kneel on this rug, is  - Lord, send revival to this rug.

Revival and Prayer

Now I come to a subject matter that is very close to my heart: prayer. Not that I am an expert on prayer - far from it. But I have always been fascinated by it, drawn to it, often disappointed and tired and exhausted because of it. I don't fully understand how it works. I don't understand why it is so important, I only know that it is very important and that it works in a mysterious and hidden kind of way. When it comes to revival prayer plays a decisive, if not THE crucial part, in bringing it about. As far as we know all revivals in history have been preceded by seasons of intense and persistent prayer - either by individuals or by groups of people, or both.

Just a few examples from history: the first revival of the New Testament era started with a prolonged time of communal prayer of the first followers of Jesus. Before the Holy Spirit was poured out on them in power they spent 10 days waiting in Jerusalem for it, no doubt most of the time they spent together was spent in prayer, waiting on God, seeking his face, preparing themselves to receive the gift he promised. And all throughout the book of the Act of the Apostles prayer plays a crucial part in reaching out to the world in power.

There is a fascinating talk by Dr. J. Edwin Orr (originally from Belfast) entitled, "The Role of Prayer in Spiritual Awakening." He is an expert on American Revivals and in this talk he shows from history how every spiritual awakening in America has started with intense prayer.

Before the Dublin Revival in 1968 that I mentioned earlier in the blog regular prayer meetings across denominational barriers were held every Wednesday for several decades in that city, praying to God for revival.

The revival in Indonesia of the 1960-s and 1970-s - with two German Theologians playing a prominent part in it (Detmar and Volkhard Scheunemann) - started with two month of intense prayer at a bible institute in Batu. The burden for prayer was so strong that many students and teachers prayed through whole nights. They stopped the regular school routine and devoted all their days and many nights to seeking God's face, repenting of lukewarmness and sin, and praying for revival. When God sent it, it strongly resembled the accounts of the Acts of the Apostles in its intensity and spiritual power.

Reuben R. Torey, a preacher who was mightily used by God in spiritual awakenings around the world at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, even went so far as to give a prescription how to start a revival. He writes: First: let a group of Christians get thoroughly right with God. If this isn't done, the rest will come to nothing. Second: Let them bind themselves together to pray for revival until God opens the windows of heaven and comes down. Third: Let them put themselves at the disposal of God for his use as he sees fit in winning others to Christ. That is all. I've given this prescription around the world... and in no instance has it failed. It cannot fail.

The promise of Scripture is very clear: 

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7, 14)

Still I am sure revival is the sovereign work of God. It is God who initiates it by his holy Spirit. But he always uses prayer of his children as a means to this end. That's why we have started this year with a week of prayer in our church. That's why we are organizing United Prayer Nights in our church each month. That's why I have often prayed in my individual prayer times to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion. So far this is the weak point here in Greystones. There is no movement in prayer yet. And sometimes the temptation to give up is very strong. And yet, there are signs that God is moving. Yesterday I was at a united  prayer and worship event in Hillside Evangelical Church in Greystones - and it was very encouraging and uplifting. So I want to get up, start praying again, with effort, with faith, with intensity, with conviction.

Anybody reading this wants to join in? The United Prayer Nights in our church are happening every first Sunday night of the month at 7 pm. So the next one is on the 5th of February. Let's come together for praise, prayer and intercession. There is no way around it if we want to see revival come to this land.

What is Revival?

I am aware of the fact that the word "revival" has taken on a variety of meanings in our days. So it is about time to try and come up with a definition of the word as I understand it. I would like to start by stating what I don't mean by it:
* I don't mean a series of meetings that are aiming at renewing the church. Sometimes the word is used in that sense, as in "our church is having a revival from the 1st to the 10th of January". Revival as I understand it cannot be organized by us. It is something that only God can do. It may or may not start with or include organized meetings, but they are not an essential part of what revival is.
* Revival is also often associated with emotional piety and public hysteria, which is not what I mean when I speak of revival.
The best theological definition or description of revival that I could find was written by James Packer in his book "Keep in Step with the Spirit". Here it is in it's original wording:

"Scripture points to a recurring process whereby, following upon coldness, carelessness, and unfaithfulness among God's people, God himself acts in sovereignty to restore what was ready to perish by means of the following set of events:
God Comes Down. (See Isaiah 64,1) He makes known his inescapable presence as the Holy One, mighty and majestic, confronting his own people both to humble and to exalt, and reaching out into the wider world in mercy and judgement. Other biblical words of saying this are that God "awakes", "arises", "visits", and "draws near" (See Psalm 44:23-26; 69:18; 80:14 KJV). God's coming forces folk to realize, like Isaiah in the temple, the intimacy of the supernatural and the closeness, majesty, and knowingness (that is, the heart-searching omniscience) of the living Lord (see Isaiah 6:1-8; Revelation 1:9-18).
God's Word Comes Home. The Bible, its message, and its Christ reestablish the formative and corrective control over faith and life that are theirs by right. The divine authority and power of the Bible are felt afresh, and believers find that this collection of Hebrew and Christian literary remains becomes once more the means whereby God speaks to them, clears and changes their minds, and searches and feeds their souls.
God's Purity Comes Through. As God uses his Word to quicken consciences, the perverseness, ugliness, uncleanness, and guilt of sin are seen and felt with new clarity, and the depth of each person's own sinfulness is realized as never before. Believers are deeply humbled; unbelievers are made to feel that living as they do with sin and without God is intolerable, and the forgiveness of sins becomes the most precious truth in the creed.
God's People Come Alive. Repentance and restitution, faith, hope and love, joy and peace, praise and prayer, conscious communion with Christ, confident certainty of salvation, uninhibited boldness of testimony, readiness to share, and a spontaneous reaching out to all in need become their characteristic marks. There is a new forthrightness of utterance, expressing a new clarity of vision with respect to good and evil; and a new energy for reformation - personal, ecclesiastical, and social - goes along with it.
While all this is happening, outsiders come in, drawn by the moral and spiritual magnetism of what goes on in the church.
(J. I. Packer: "Keep in Step with the Spirit - finding fullness in our walk with God. New extended edition" IVP. Nottingham, 2009, Page 194-195)

This description by Packer summarizes the essentials of what happens in times of revival. Often revivals are accompanied by extraordinary miracles, signs and wonders like in biblical times. But these are not the essence and centre of revival. They are given to show that God is indeed present with his people and to confirm the preaching of the Gospel. Also some hysterical or emotionally extreme reactions among people may occur in revivals as well, but they also are not what it is all about. Revival is the mighty presence of the Holy God among his people. This is what I long for in my life and in the life of the church.

Why I believe that revival is coming to Ireland (part 2)

It is easy to become cynical about revival. For many years there has been talk about it, people were saying it was imminent, some guest preachers would regularly whip their audiences into frenzy about it, but when they were gone things quickly returned to normal. What is different this time? What reason do we have to believe that a major move of God is indeed coming our way? - Again I can only speak from my personal experience:

When I first came to Ireland 3 years ago I was pleased to notice that there were some people in my congregation who had experienced a powerful visitation of God before. The Nazarene Church had been used by God in a local revival some 40 years ago in Dublin (1967). A Nazarene Evangelist from the Middle East by the name of Samuel Doctorian was invited by a small congregation to come to Dublin and speak for a week. When he came, God powerfully entered the meetings, so much so that he cancelled all his following commitments and stayed for 30 days. The meetings grew daily until they had to move to a very large venue and many people came to know the Lord. Some miraculous healings occured and God was mightily present among his people. When I asked Fred Stephens, one of those first hand witnesses of this revival, to share in our evening service, God also visited us and the meeting turned into a praise and worship time where nobody wanted to go home. It went on for over two hours, whereas normally a Sunday night Service rarely goes longer than an hour. Another sign for me that the Spirit of God is stirring.

What convinced me more than anything else though was a talk that Tony Stone gave in May 2010 in our church. He spoke about several signs that point to the fact that God is about to send revival. These signs are everywhere and I see them in my own experience. What are they? He spoke about 4 areas:

1 There are signs in the world
2 There are signs in the powers of darkness
3 There are signs in the church
4 There are signs in the Holy Spirit


You can listen to this talk online when you log on to http://www.nazarene.ie and navigate to the sermon section of the website. It is Dr. Tony Stone Sermon 1. A very worth while talk to listen to. Here just a brief summary.

1 There are signs in the world
Tony stone convincingly argued from the biblical witness that when the world turns away from God and starts rebelling against God's law - then it is time for God to work. Psalm 119, 126: "It is time for you to act, o Lord, for your law is being broken". There has been a massive turning away from God's law in recent years in the Western hemisphere, so much so that the generation that is growing up right now has no clear values anymore. The sense of right and wrong has been lost in society. Laws are being introduced that are defying God's law. Although this is very negative in and of itself it serves as a sign that God will not tolerate that forever. It is time for God to act. We pray that he will act in sending revival, not in judgement.
2. There are signs in the powers of darkness
Whenever God is about to do a mighty work on earth Satan attacks immediately before or immediately afterwards. In recent years the attacks have been very obvious in many churches. There have been church splits, divisions, strife and frictions. Church after church is going through the mill. The Nazarene Church in Greystones has had a very difficult time in it's not so distant past. And while many good things are happening I can feel the onslaught of the attacks from the powers of darkness in my personal life very much. This is another sign that God is on the move.
3. There are signs in the church
Tony Stone was talking from his experience in the UK. Many churches have a new hunger for prayer and a healthy inward look, where wrong priorities and sinful patterns are recognized and repented of. Here in Ireland there is a new need for prayer growing in the churches. Arise Dublin is one such movement of churches coming together for prayer and seeking of God's face. Aontas and the Irish Evangelical Alliance have both stressed the need for prayer in their respective member churches. Prayer is moving to the forefront of church life again. In my view this sign is not so strong here in Ireland yet. I'd love to see much more of a hunger for prayer and repentance in my own congregation, but things are changing for the better. They most definitely are.
4. There are signs in the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is creating a hunger in the church. And hunger is always preparation for fullness. There is a new hunger for Prayer, a new hunger for Praise, a new hunger for Purity and Holiness, a new hunger for the Power of God. I can witness this in my own life and in some people in my congregation.
So all the signs are in place. Now it is up to us to act accordingly: to seek God's face in prayer and wait on him for revival.

why I believe that revival is coming to Ireland (part 1)

Now let me be straight up front: God never told me in an audible voice that he is about to send Revival to Ireland. I never had a prophetic dream or vision that would tell me that. God doesn't seem to communicate with me that way. So how did I arrive at this conviction that revival is coming? Let me share some of my personal experiences that played a part in it:

Three years ago, when I arrived in Ireland to start my probation period here at the Naz in Greystones I was asking God to confirm my call to Ireland. My family was still back in Germany at that time while I was checking out the place and asking God for guidance. It was such a risky move for me and my family. So many things could go wrong (and actually did go wrong later). So I wanted to be sure, to be sure. In my daily devotions I used a devotional book written by Henry and Richard Blackaby with the title "Experiencing God". God had used this book on numerous occasions to speak into my situation. Pretty soon after my arrival in Ireland I received an invitation from Dun Laoghaire Evangelical Church to attend a conference on revival (!). Who would be the speakers? - Richard and Henry Blackaby. Now that caught my attention straight away. I went to that conference and was really blessed by it. I got to meet Richard Blackaby in person and chat with him. The services were really powerful. That was a strong hint for me that God was up to something here. 

Some time later I received an invitation to a church-leader's gathering in a large African Church in Dublin. Again I went just to meet people and see what's happening. At that meeting I heard a speaker by the name of Tony Stone addressing the meeting. I really liked what he said and how he said it, so I got his contact details afterwards and wrote him an email inviting him to our church, if he ever was to come to Ireland. At that time I didn't know him at all. Later I learned that he was an evangelist who had worked on Billy Graham's team in the past and who preached to very large crowds in Africa on a regular basis. In 2010 I got an email from him telling me that he had been asked to speak in Dublin at the stadium and in St.Mark's church. If I wanted he could come to our church two days before that and speak at our place. Of course I wanted. So he came to our church and spoke on two evening meetings. A guy who usually has an audience of many thousand people came and spoke to 30 - 60 people in a small church in Greystones. What was his theme? - It was revival. And in one of his talks he said that God had spoken to him in a very definite way and promised him that he would live to see a powerful move of God in the UK and in Ireland. He was 72 years of age at the time. Another very strong hint for me that God was up to something. And that is not all. To be continued....

welcome to my blog on revival

So you arrived here on my blog on revival. Let me make some assumptions about you, my reader (if ever anyone is going to read this at all): Chances are that you are a follower of Christ, or at least remotely interested in the Christian faith. If that is not so, you will probably stop reading and click on to another page right here; (I leave a little space in brackets for you to do it right now) because this blog is about the work of the Holy Spirit in times of revival. If you have read this far and you still want to go on reading you are probably a normal, healthy Christian. How do I know this? Well, every normal Christian has an innate desire for the Holy Spirit that he or she carries with them since they experienced their second birth. James Packer (a theologian whom I admire) wrote in one of his books that the words "Holy Spirit" trigger a strong emotional reaction in the healthy Christian, just like the word "sex" triggers a strong emotional reaction in every normal, healthy adult. I believe he is right. There is something electrifying about the person of the Holy Spirit for the normal Christian that just can't be denied. And you probably can relate to that. You have a hunger, a deep desire to know more of his Power, of his Love and of his Peace in your own experience. Welcome to the tribe.

Now let me tell you why I am starting this blog. Last week I visited the Global Leadership Summit of the Willow Creek Association in Dublin (9th-10th of November). During this conference I had what I call a "God moment". God had been speaking to me about revival in Ireland practically since the time I arrived here in November 2008. Now, three years later, I feel that the level of clarity of his speaking has increased dramatically. It is time to go public, I felt. On the day before the conference I wrote in my diary: "Yesterday it "clicked" with me once again as I was listening on my iphone to a talk by Tony Stone (British Evangelist) in the gym. All the pieces of the jigsaw have come together. We are on the verge of a mighty move of God here in Ireland..." With this conviction I arrived at the conference. The "God moment" came when I was listening to Seth Godin, a bestselling author and renowned marketing blogger, delivering his highly enlightening and equally entertaining talk with the title "poke the box". In his talk he made the observation that today's world is comprised of a great variety of different "tribes". These tribes share common convictions, interests, tastes or ideologies. Most of them can be addressed, organized or approached via the internet. BOOOOM. I thought, "that's it." There is a tribe of "revivalists" out there who all share a common desire to see God move in a powerful way. These are the people I want to address, I want to network with, pray together, discuss, create synergy as we are waiting and praying for God to move in Ireland in an unprecedented way. I felt God prompting me to start blogging about it. And this first blog is a step of faith and obedience to what I believe God has asked me to do. So if you can in any way relate to the tribe of those who pray for revival, would you sign up and follow this blog? Write your comments, let's unite our efforts and prayers and let's play a part in God's move here on the emerald Isle. God bless you!!!

(If you are not a Christian and you ended up reading this far, I am convinced that God is on your case. If you would be interested in finding out about the reality of God, you are welcome to write as well. I would love to help you find a personal relationship to God, if you are looking for it.)